


Wrong Choice of Words

by Alramech



Category: Hockey RPF, Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: 2018 NHL All-Star Weekend, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eventual Relationships, F/M, Female Marc-Andre Fleury, Genderswap, Goalies Are All Friends, Oblivious Sidney Crosby, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-22 07:45:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19662919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alramech/pseuds/Alramech
Summary: “He has a point, Flower,”  Braden said with a grin. “A certain former-captain of yours couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off you when you walked in. He’s been staring at you all throughout dinner.” Marie-Andre ran a hand through her hair.“He’s not interested,” she shook her head. “Sid has been avoiding me since we arrived in Tampa. In fact, he’s been distant since the expansion draft. I'm sure he wants nothing to do with me.”Henrik gave the other goaltenders a knowing look.





	Wrong Choice of Words

**Author's Note:**

> A few things for background information: 
> 
> Very few women make it to the NHL and even fewer make a name for themselves. 50% of players are indifferent to women being in the NHL because they have an “if you are good enough to play then you’re good enough to stay” kind of mentality. 25% are fully supportive of women being allowed in the NHL and are vocal about their support. 15% isn’t so sure about women being in the NHL and won’t really say anything about their opinions. And then 10% are fairly against women being in the NHL. 
> 
> Realistic views, but slightly more progressive in acceptance if that makes sense.

Marie broke through the water’s surface. She leaned on the edge of the hotel pool, resting her chin on her crossed arms. She glanced around the enclosed, and private, pool deck. The palm trees stood tall in the warm Tampa sun. 

“Flower!” Claude Giroux called out, catching her attention. The Philadelphia Flyer looked a little red in the face despite arriving that day. And Marie-Andre may not be described as incredibly fashion savvy, but she felt confident that his green swimming trunks clashed terribly with his worn orange tee. 

“Want to play?” He asked. He was holding a white ball in one hand and was gesturing to the others standing on the beach volleyball court with the other.

“I’m in,” she grinned, hopping out of the pool. The sand caked her feet in a thick layer but she didn’t mind. Marie grabbed her towel from the beach lounger beside her teammate and quickly scrubbed down. She then laid out the towel to dry and placed her Vegas Golden Knights hat on her head with the brim facing backward.

“Alright,” PK Subban began. “You and Peks are a team and we are a team.” He motioned to Pekka Rinne and Marie before gesturing to himself, Claude, and Drew Doughty. 

“That’s not fair!” Pekka complained. “There’s only two of us.”

“Nealer! Want to join us?” Marie-Andre yelled to her teammate who was lying in a pool lounger. 

“No thank you, Flower,” he said, eyes closed underneath the sunglasses. “I appreciate the offer though.” Marie rolled her eyes and shifted focus to the group entering through the gate to the pool area. 

“Hey, guys!” Drew waved his hands in the air. “Any of you want to play some volleyball?”

“Come on Sid, Tanger!” Flower smiled. “You can be on my team!” Marie’s former Captain shook his head. She watched in disappointment as he walked away, rather briskly, to the hot tub on the opposite side of the enclosed area. 

“I’ll play, Flower,” Kris Letang offered quickly, having noticed the tense situation. Marie turned to him and smiled gratefully. 

With the teams decided, PK tossed up the ball to begin the match. In the beginning, the score was kept, but as time went on the score and most rules were abandoned. They had drawn a bit of attention with their disagreements; for the record, Marie was certain that her hit was well within bounds.

None of that seemed to matter though, because by the time the group headed inside to escape the grasp of the Florida sun, their banter consisted of mindless chirping rather than a fight over who had won in the end. Marie and Tanger found themselves taking the stairs rather than the elevator, prompting Marie to break the silence.

“Is Sid mad at me?” She asked hesitantly. “In the lobby—and the pool-”

“No,” Kris shook his head fiercely. 

“Is he still upset that I left?” The goalie questioned once more, this time in a smaller voice. Kris pondered for a moment. 

“A bit, but most of us are, to be honest,” he admitted. Marie’s absence hurt the team chemistry quite a bit, which was to be expected if Kris were to be perfectly honest. Flower was a large piece of the team; the heart some might say. “I think he’s just trying to cope with the fact that we were beaten by an expansion team,” Tanger teased with a nudge as they walked down the hallway.

“Oh, okay,” Marie answered. She knew that he was just trying to make her feel better, and she appreciated it, but it honestly didn’t exactly help. “Well, I’ll see you tonight at dinner,” she waved, splitting off and heading into her room. Inside, her teammate was lying on his bed with a pillow over his head. 

Marie glanced around, looking for some way to mess with her teammate but eventually decided against it. Instead, she grabbed the pillow that was covering his head and whacked him a few times in the face. “Nealer!”

“Wha-” Marie smacked him in the face again before he could speak. 

“Flower!”

“Hello,” she grinned, quickly tucking the pillow behind her back. 

“Are you done?” He questioned, not bothering to fend off the urge to roll his eyes. Marie gave him another whack before dropping the pillow. 

“We have to get ready for dinner tonight. It’s getting late.”

“So?”

“You take a while to do your hair,” she pointed out, reaching over and messing up his hair. 

“It will take longer if you keep messing with it,” he complained as he sat up and stretched. 

“I need your opinion on what dress I should wear,” Marie walked towards their shared hotel room closet. “You have a decent eye for these kinds of things.” Neal sat on the edge of the bed as he waited for her to return. 

“I need to decide which of these two I’m wearing tonight,” she explained. Marie-Andre held up the two dresses in question. One dress was a plain, short, and slim black dress with elbow-length sleeves. The other was a long, flowy red dress with a v-shaped neckline and thin straps. James glanced up from his phone. “I think the black one is perfect for tonight and I would wear that red one before the skills competition. What are you wearing for the red carpet?” 

James glanced up from his phone. “I think the black one is perfect for tonight and I would wear that red one before the skills competition. What are you wearing for the red carpet?”

“It’s the dark green one I showed you all a while back,” she explained. “I haven’t had the chance to wear it yet and thought this weekend would be good.”

“The longer one with the sleeves?” Marie nodded. She turned to the other side of the room and began getting ready for the banquet being held for the players in the All-Star game. Honestly, Marie was just glad that it was in their hotel and closed off from the press, everything else was a bonus. Marie didn’t mind changing in front of her teammates, but that’s only because she always wore her spandex under her dress, not to mention the fact that she had mastered changing into a sports bra from a regular without actually taking the later of the two off until the sports bra was on. 

Most of her former and current teammates will tell you that she’s just like any other teammate, ‘one of the guys,’ and that is exactly how Marie wants it to stay. If it takes her chirping with the best of them and pranking the best of them, then so be it. Besides, no one suspected it was her for the first few years she was in the league, but to be honest Sid had always known it was her. 

After getting dressed, she quickly put on some makeup, not a lot, and partially curled some of her hair. 

“Ready to go, Flower?” asked James. The pair set off down the hall to the elevator. They maintained small talk until they passed the lobby, where Marie got a view of the time from the clock on the wall. 

“I think we’re a bit late.” 

“It’s called being fashionably late,” he pointed out as they approached the dining room doors. “Besides, we’re representing Vegas.”

“That’s not really an excuse, Nealer” she grinned, shaking her head as they entered through the doors.

“Sure it is!” 

Marie laughed at her teammate’s comment, immediately losing the composure she had initially intended on maintaining. Her cheeks gained a light blush once she noticed all the eyes on her. She squeezed James’ arm as her expression grew bashful.

“Should we find our spots?” James leaned over and whispered in her ear. Marie nodded, letting him lead her towards their assigned seating with other players from the Pacific Division. Once there, he pulled out Marie’s chair with a bit of dramatic flair, gesturing for her to sit. She giggled, thanking him as she took the offered seat. He then took the seat to her right. 

They were seated at rectangle tables that had 6 seats on either side; one more than necessary. Each division’s players occupied one of the six tables; the last two occupied by the coaches and other members of NHL staff. The tables were neatly decorated with white table cloths and in the center of the tables was a large vase with a bouquet of red and white flowers. The carpet in the banquet hall was a dark burgundy.

“I didn’t take you as the kind of people to be fashionably late,” Connor McDavid teased from his seat across from Marie’s teammate. 

“It takes time to look this good,” Neal replied, causing the other players around them to chuckle. 

“You look great,” Mike Smith offered quietly with a genuine smile. 

“Thank you,” Marie said, appreciative of the positive comment she received. “You look very sharp yourself.”

“I’m pretty sure the only reason my wife allows me to keep playing is that she gets to see me dressed in a suit and tie all the time,” he joked back with a grin. 

“She’s a very lucky woman,” Marie smiled back. The other goaltender was about to say something else, but their conversation was interrupted by servers coming out with plates of food (upon further investigation, Marie decided that the meal was just the hotel’s version of chicken and pasta). 

The conversation had been minimal during the meal, but eventually, everyone had finished and was now mingling amongst one another. 

“What about you?” Mike nodded at her, the two of them sticking close to the Pacific Division table. “You have to have a boyfriend.”

“No,” she shook her head, face turning red in embarrassment as she rolled her eyes. “I had a boyfriend back home, but we broke things off a couple of years after I was drafted.” It felt weird to admit such personal things, to a rival goaltender no less, but it wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable as she’d imagined. 

“So it wasn’t a mutual break up then, because that was a considerably long time ago. You definitely could have found someone else,” he deduced. 

“Well, he broke up with me because we wouldn’t be able to have children,” she admitted quietly. 

“You didn’t want to put your career on hold to start a family,” he offered. 

“Not really, actually,” Marie revealed as she tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “I found out that I couldn’t have children. I’m infertile.” 

“Flower…”

“He said he really wanted a family and said that things weren’t going to work out between us,” she finished explaining. 

“You could have done the artificial fertilization, couldn’t you?”

“In Vitro fertilization, I think you mean,” she smiled sadly. “I wasn’t making NHL money at the time; we couldn’t afford the procedures. And there is no guarantee it would work.”

“Well, the money isn’t a problem anymore,” Mike pointed out before moving on. “So, what about Neal? You two seemed awfully close.” 

“No!” Marie exclaimed, horrified at the suggestion. “I won’t date teammates. It would never work out. Besides, Nealer he has a long-time girlfriend. And it’s not just Nealer, though,” she pointed out. “Everyone on the team is very close. It would have taken years to get this kind of bond anywhere else.”

“Good evening Mike,” Henrik Lundqvist greeted. “And Flower, stunning as usual.” Marie thanked ‘The King’. He was accompanied by Braden Holtby and Pekka Rinne, the latter of which had wandered over from the Central division table. 

“Flower needs to get laid,” Mike began, speaking directly towards the new arrivals to the discussion.

“Mike Smith!” Marie gritted out, whacking the other goaltender with a decent amount of force. 

“Wrong choice of words,” he appealed. “Flower needs a boyfriend, but she claims she won’t date teammates.”

“What about former teammates?” Pekka suggested. He had a sly smirk on his face and his eyes had a sparkle of mischief.

“What do you mean?” Marie asked, startled by the other goalie’s implication.

“He has a point, Flower,” Braden said with a grin. “A certain former-captain of yours couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off you when you walked in. He’s been staring at you all throughout dinner.” Marie ran a hand through her hair.

“He’s not interested,” she shook her head. “Sid has been avoiding me since we arrived in Tampa. In fact, he was distant the last time we played in Vegas as well. I'm sure he wants nothing to do with me.”

Henrik gave the other goaltenders a knowing look. 

“Listen, Flower,” he began. “Crosby just doesn’t know what to do. He probably hasn’t had a girlfriend since before Juniors.”

Marie chewed on her lip. 

“You think?” She asked, a hopeful tone in her voice. But the thought shattered just as quickly as it appeared. “He wants a family. He told me himself years ago. I can’t promise him that.”

Henrik placed his hands on her shoulders. “Marie, calm down. 

“Just go talk to him,” Pekka nudged her forward. 

“About what?” 

“Anything,” Holtby suggested. 

“Probably not hockey,” Henrik interjected. 

“Not hockey?” 

“Not hockey.” 

Marie let out a deep breath. “Okay.”

“You played with him for over a decade, Flower,” Holtby shook his head. “I’m sure you’ll find something to talk about.”

“Okay,” she repeated, hesitating before setting off towards his former teammates.

The goalies watched as she made her way across the room before they began making conversation again, not wanting to interrupt the privacy she was probably wanting. 

“Hello Sid,” she began with a smile. “It’s been a while since we talked, eh?”

“Flower,” Sid began softly, causing Marie to freeze; her polite smile remained but there was no emotion behind it. The silent tension built up so great that she felt the weight collapsing on her shoulders. “I don’t think I can do this anymore,” he began once more. Marie’s stomach dropped and her breath hitched in her throat. A feeling of utter dread settled in the air. “It can’t be the same.” 

“I know,” she spoke in a voice softer than when she was being introduced to a group of people she didn’t know, yet her accent was as thick as it had been when they first met. Sid didn’t know how to respond so he nodded before turning away from her. How was it that she figured it out? 

He had been avoiding her and he hadn’t bothered to disguise it. Of course, she noticed.

Sidney felt nauseous.

-

Pekka nudged Henrik, giving a slight nod towards where Flower was no longer conversing with Sid.

It appeared that Sid had left her not long after Kris and a few others joined them, no more than a few minutes after Marie had arrived. 

Henrik sighed, recognizing that Marie had done nothing wrong. Sid had been the one to cut himself off. 

To her credit, Marie-Andre kept herself composed as she made her way towards James. 

“I’m going back to the room, okay?” Marie muttered softly, placing a hand on her teammate’s upper arm. He excused himself from his conversation for a moment, turning to face her. 

“Flower, are you alright?” He whispered back, the smile dropping from his face in an instant. 

“I’m just really tired,” she said, hoping it was enough to convince him to let it go. James knew that she was lying, but had decided that it was something best-discussed elsewhere. 

“Alright,” he sighed. “Want me to go back with you?” She shook her head. 

“No, I’ll be alright.” Marie gave a small smile before slipping out the door. 

“Goddammit, Sid,” he murmured after she left. James shook his head, glancing over at his former teammate before heading to the bar to grab a drink.

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize for any player who seems out of character. I regretfully don't know exactly every player's mannerisms, personality, and speech pattern. Also, please tell me what you think!  
> \--  
> Swim Suit: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ad/e5/89/ade5897688e1e4f24ccef320a531b743.jpg 
> 
> Red Dress (Picture the dress in red): https://www.promdaysecrets.com/gallery/expensive-prom-dresses-for-glamorous-prom-queens/expensive-prom-dresses-for-glamorous-prom-queens-2.jpg
> 
> Black Dress: https://www.lulus.com/images/product/xlarge/2333832_458432.jpg


End file.
